


don’t read the last page (but i’ll stay)

by secretlyhuman



Category: Brooklyn Nine Nine
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Fluff and Angst, It’s mostly just those two, Minor Character Deaths, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 04:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12927018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: Ten years and sixteen days after they broke up Amy got a call from an unknown number. Normally she wouldn’t answer a call like that, more often than not as a captain, calls like that were threats or complaints she could not answer, but that day she did. On the other side of the line she could hear ugly raw sobbing, the kind that caused sympathy to run straight into her bones for the person experiencing it.“Hello. Are you okay, sir?” Her voice shook as she answered the phone, the person on the end was clearly not okay and she didn’t know what to do. It was very rare that Captain Amy Santiago found herself feeling helpless.“Ames.” And with that she knew who it was, the only person it could be, eleven years at the nine nine flooding back all at once.





	don’t read the last page (but i’ll stay)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from New Years Day by Taylor Swift which is a song I’m pretty sure Jake peralta would love 
> 
> Tysm for reading x

When Jake Peralta had broken up with her, Amy let herself cry for two days. In those days she lay in bed, letting all the colours she’d seen with him fade back into a world of greys. For those two days it felt like she would never recover, could never return to being an Amy that wasn’t inexplicably linked with Jake.

After the two days she’d made various lists such as “All The Things About Jake Peralta That Made Me Want To Scream.” (That list had featured the one grey towel in their bathroom and the fact he didn’t know how to manage his finances among other things.)

She’d transferred to the eighty second precinct almost six months to the day after their breakup so she didn’t have to see him that day or any of the ones after. She was a sergeant and she loved her job. She had loved him but he didn’t love her and she chose to accept that, compartmentalise and move on.

Three months later she transferred to Manhattan, moved to the upper east, far away from her Brooklyn life and it felt like she was coping.

….

When she got promoted to captain it felt like all the pieces of her life were falling into place. She had the precisely ordered life she always wanted, no messy edges or rough parts.

….

Ten years and sixteen days after they broke up Amy got a call from an unknown number. Normally she wouldn’t answer a call like that, more often than not as a captain, calls like that were threats or complaints she could not answer, but that day she did. On the other side of the line she could hear ugly raw sobbing, the kind that caused sympathy to run straight into her bones for the person experiencing it.

“Hello. Are you okay, sir?” Her voice shook as she answered the phone, the person on the end was clearly not okay and she didn’t know what to do. It was very rare that Captain Amy Santiago found herself feeling helpless.

“Ames.” And with that she knew who it was, the only person it could be, eleven years at the nine nine flooding back all at once.

She fell silent, his name felt unfamiliar to her, like she’d forgotten how to say it.

“Ames, my mom died and I didn't know who to call and I still had your number and I just ….” His words were broken up with more of those heavy sobs and he trailed off leaving her aching to help him.

“Jake,text me your address, I’ll be there in an hour and a half.” The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to think about them. Why was she dropping everything for the man that broke her heart? She decided not to think about it, loyalty drawn from their years of partnership overriding any hurt feelings as she packed an overnight bag and went to her car.

….

He still lived in their neighbourhood, she thought as she approached an unassuming door painted a neutral blue. Somehow that was the only part of this whole situation that really got to her. Jake was still Jake and Karen was dead and he lived in their old neighbourhood. She could be at their old apartment in less than five minutes if she wanted to be and not for the first time that night she wondered if she was making the right choice.

Her hand shook as she reached out to knock on the door, crossing all the years of their shared history until she felt the wood bite into her knuckles. The sound echoed out and for a second it felt like everything stopped, like no time at all had passed and this was something normal.

No response came from the apartment so she pushed the door open, surprised to see it was unlocked. (The Jake she knew never left the door unlocked - New York was full of crime.) All of a sudden he was there in front of her, crumpled and crying on the floor like a lost child. He looked smaller than she’d ever seen him. For ten years she’d tried to repair the cracks in her heart, but seeing him so broken reopened them all.

…

From there everything was too fast and too much, he was in her arms and they were on his couch and he was crying, still crying. His hair scratched against her throat and she could feel the momentum of each sob as they wracked through him. Soon though the sobs slowed and he fell into fitful sleep there in her arms. For the first time she let herself look at him, let herself see the bags under his eyes and the new lines on his face. There were small changes everywhere she looked, a new poster over a new T.V, photos of people she didn’t recognise, a shirt with a tie and a stiff collar. Despite all that as he slept he looked exactly as he had ten years ago when he last slept in her arms.

…

She left him there on his couch to look in his kitchen, assessing its contents. There was one orange in the fridge and a mostly empty bottle of port on the countertop and that seemed to be it. She filled a glass of water and left a note although she didn’t think he’d wake in time to see it. She remembered how he thought of sleep as a reward, only to be enjoyed once a task had been done and if the speed at which he slipped away was any indication he didn’t see himself as worthy of the reward. Thoughts of gold star stickers flashed through her head and she let herself smile at the memory of their shared history.

The bodega was a short walk away, the same one she knew. The same clerk still stood behind the counter and the shelves still teetered like they might collapse at any moment but it was familiar. (It was home, she’d finally let herself come home.) She picked up pasta and soup and sour candy, like ticking items off a list she’d written before everything else. (Like she was allowed to come home to him.)

When she got back to his apartment he was still curled into himself on the sofa, a blanket she’d found on his bed draped over him, water undisturbed. She didn’t know what to do so she sat in a soft chair (new) and made neat lists on her phone, each bullet point carefully colour coded.

…

 **Reasons not to stay**  
-She hadn’t been back to Brooklyn in at least five years  
-She had a precinct to run  
-The Squad were likely still mad at her after The Incident  
-Jake Peralta had broken her heart

…

 **Reasons to stay**  
-Broken heart or not, she couldn’t let Jake Peralta grieve alone.

…

Two years after she’d transferred to Manhattan and three weeks after her Lieutenants exam Norm Scully died. He died on a Tuesday at home with Cindy Spatz in bed beside him. He went to sleep at night and then the next morning Norm Scully wasn’t a person any more just a body and a collection of things.

She’d got the email from Rosa on a Wednesday (not from Jake, never from him anymore), the funeral would be the next Monday. She clutched some papers to her chest and went to cry in the file room of her unfamiliar precinct. Then she returned to her desk and redid some paperwork, so she wouldn’t have to explain tear stains and crumpled edges.

On the Monday of Norm Scully’s funeral, Amy sat her desk, did her work and tried not to think of the family she’d left behind. Apart from Rosa none of the Nine Nine even spoke to her and it broke her heart to imagine them, one more member of their once close knit family gone.

After the funeral, even Rosa stopped talking to her. The thing about family is that they show up and she hadn’t so she lost them. The final thing tying her to Brooklyn snapping like old twine.

…

For the first time in eleven years Jake Peralta was seeing Amy and the thought made his throat tighten. Then he remembered why she was there and the tightening turned back into sobbing and he saw her start from the careful sleep she must have fallen into.

“Jake. I’m here.” The words didn’t help, his tears fell harder and faster and he fell back into the crook of her shoulder, tears staining the soft fabric of her shirt.

She looked just like he remembered him. Golden and glowing and so soft. Her hair was pulled from her face and she wore a pair of yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt.  
Despite it all a laugh bubbled through him.

“Ames,’ are you wearing my shirt?”

It was big and gray with the nakatomi towers plastered across it. It was an old favourite, he’d searched for it for months after she left. But there it was. It had found his way back to him. (She’d found her way back to him.) He could have watched the blush that spread across her face for years. Slowly he remembered what the edges of happiness felt like, that maybe he could make his way back to it.

…

She had to leave after that first day, return to a Manhattan day that he wasn’t part of and he found more than anything he didn’t want her to leave.

She’d never say a word but she didn’t want to leave either. A night in an uncomfortable chair in an unfamiliar room was apparently all it took for her to remember why she loved him. It definitely wasn’t that she was already in love with him again, after all the time that had passed it could never be that simple but she could remember why and what it felt like.

(It felt like staring at the sun until your eyes were burning but in a good way. Or like the first sip of a hot drink on a cold day. Or the way muscles ached after a working out. )

She left him with her email and her address and an open door.

…

It was a week before they spoke again. (And all things considered that was something of an achievement.) She came home from her precinct to find him on her doorstep, hands in pockets and a guilty look on his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time he saw her.

“Jake.” Her voice was soft, still remembering how to speak when he was there.

“Before you say anything, I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead but I couldn’t be in my apartment anymore and I didn’t want to distract you from your precinct.” The consideration filled her with warmth that almost covered the grief of why he couldn’t be in his home.

“Wait, how long have you been outside my door.”

“Like, two hours, it was better than where I was it's fine.” The fact he’d decided that an uncomfortable step was better than a bed or a chair or even the ground of his apartment worried her, she was scared of how far he’d slip before he accepted real help.

She let him into her own apartment. It was clean and white and open. It had a skylight and a balcony and big,breezy windows. The only colour were plants and cushions and Amy saw it for the first time through someone else’s eyes. It was sterile, and cold. She almost felt embarrassed letting Jake see the neat space.

“Before we talk, when was the last time you slept.”

“Like three days ago but I’m fine, I promise.”

“Oh my god, you drove here.” She dragged him by the arm and practically threw him into her bedroom, strong enough that he fell into her bed with a thump. She went and found the freshly washed die hard shirt and tossed it to him and ignored his protests that really he was fine. She turned away slightly as he got changed into the shirt, not watching the ripple of his muscle as he moved. She told him to sleep nice more and then left.

(His protests would have been more effective if he hadn’t fallen asleep before she’d even left the room.)

…

She wasn’t quite sure how it happened but once he came back to her he never really left. She made up her spare bed and found the flannels hidden in her drawers.

(Not that she’d kept the shirts for all those years. Maybe like she always knew he would come back to her.)

…

They knew he’d have to go back eventually, back to the life in Brooklyn that she wasn’t a part of. He needed clean clothes and fresh air, had a job that wouldn’t stay on hold for much longer and so on a crisp Wednesday he left her apartment again. She thought he was going to come back, they’d formed an easy alliance since he arrived and she thought maybe they could fix it all.

She wasn’t worried when he didn’t call her that Wednesday night. She knew he just got back and had a lot to catch up on. The squad had probably been worried about where he’d gone.

She was somewhat more worried by the end of Thursday when he still hadn’t called. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but she knew that his grief was still there. When he’d arrived at her apartment he’d been barely hanging on. What if he’d crash landed on return to his own apartment. What if he needed her and she didn’t come.

It was on Friday night she decided to go back to Brooklyn. She didn’t think she could forgive herself if she let him go again.

...

She still had the text he’d sent her that first day, his address in a too familiar neighbourhood and all too quickly she was at his door again. Regret suddenly flooded through her, what if he’d just been trying to get away from her and she hadn’t picked up on the signs. She hadn’t noticed the last time so why would this one be any different. Her breath came faster and before she could think about it anymore she knocked sharply on his door.

It was opened and left open before she could respond, the opener walking away before she could say a word. Amy took it as an invitation and followed the sound of voices into his now crowded living room. There in front of her was the remains of the nine nine. Jake sat on his sofa, crowded in by Charles and Genevieve, Holt sat in the chair she’d sat in less than a fortnight before. Rosa and Gina were by the wall scowling.

(Terry had moved to the suburbs with his girls shortly after the Funeral. She assumed he was still there.)

“Sorry, if I’m interrupting.” She paused to try and control her nerves. “I just came to check you were okay.” She only looked at him, like he could shield her from the family that had chosen him.

“Don’t worry Ames, they’re just holding an intervention because y’know I disappeared on them.” She thought of all the text messages he’d left unanswered while at her apartment and heard the guilt in his voice. Of course they’d been worried and of course it would take them time to get him to confess. She wasn’t sure what to do next but thankfully Holt stepped in before she could say anything.

“Thank you for taking care of Peralta, Captain Santiago, you’re a good friend. Do you want to stay?” She could barely bring herself to nod, the word friend slicing through her, still as painful as it had always been. Somehow she managed it, then moved to sit at a dining chair that had been brought in. It all felt a little like forgiveness.

...

All too swiftly the conversation moved from the fact that Jake had disappeared to the fact that he’d come back with Amy Santiago in tow. She felt her face redden the first time Rosa said her name, they heard her breath hitch when the captain asked her how she'd been.

She wanted to scream, these people had once been her family and now all that was between them was small talk and history. The fact they’d chosen Jake all those years  
ago burned through her. She’d missed them and now she was (almost) back and they still couldn’t be hers.

…

She slept on Jake’s couch that night, wrapped in blankets that smelt like his cologne and tried to cry softly, so she didn’t disturb him.

…

When she woke up his apartment smelt like chocolate chip pancakes, the special occasion kind, and orange soda and she thought she could hear him mumbling to himself from the kitchen. She wandered through slowly trying to capture all the details she hadn’t picked up on the night before.

His new kitchen was smaller than their shared one had been and it looked surprisingly well used. On one counter lay a Tupperware of something could only be Charles’ cooking and by the stove stood Jake Peralta. For a second the desire to wrap her arms around him was so strong that it felt like all the air had been pulled out of the room.

“Do you want syrup on your pancakes, Ames?” The domesticity of it all was suffocating and she forced herself to smile through it. With all Jake was going through she didn’t need to add to it with the fact that maybe she loved him again. (Maybe she hadn’t really stopped.)

“I’m good.” She forced a smile around the words.

…

After they’d finished their pancakes sat on his sofa, the blankets she’d slept in the night before bunched up behind them the conversation stalled.

“Jake, I need to ask you something.” There had been a knot in her throat she hadn’t been able to shift after seeing an email from her commissioner while he was still cooking.

“Ames-“

She interrupted him as his face fell.

“I’m being transferred back to Brooklyn, a post has just opened up.” She collected herself for a few more seconds. “I’d be captain of the Nine Nine.” She stared at the hardwood floor, anxious not to see his face, or his reaction.

“That’s great nice.” She was surprised at the smile in his voice and when she looked up he pulled into a hug before she could say anything else.

…

The next few weeks passed in a blur of looking for apartments and boxes of things and saying goodbyes to her Manhattan precinct. (She would miss them but they would never be the Nine Nine.) She knew when she got there most of her family had transferred away. All that was left of her family were Charles and Jake but even so the smell of fingerprinting ink and stale coffee greeted her like an old friend as she walked through the door.

…

For some reason Jake chose Charles to lead her to her welcome back surprise party, so by the time she got to Shaw’s it was no longer a surprise. Shaw’s was a little grimier than she remembered but otherwise the same and she was surprised to see the Nine Nine there as she walked through the door. Rosa and Gina with shots in front of them, holt and terry talking and Jake at the front of them all grinning.

It finally felt like she was home again, the pieces she didn’t realise she was missing falling back into place.

She probably drank more than she should until five drinks in she found herself sat in a booth at the back staring at Peralta. He looked like she’d always remembered him, smiling and fuzzy round the edges, like he was glowing.

He made everything better and she wished she could tell him that. But then she also wished she could tell him how boring her life had been without him.

Maybe it was just the alcohol in her bloodstream but she didn’t think she could ignore everything that had happened between for any longer.

“Jake.” She leant forward a little and tried to make sure that her voice didn’t wobble. “What happened to us?”

He swallowed hard and she watched his eyes flatten like they always did when things got emotional. He stared into his glass for a second and then downed the last of it in one go before he even looked at her again.

“Well, um, i went to prison and then my mom got diagnosed with cancer and just, I just felt awful all the time. And in it all you were just, just this, this beacon of fucking light and I just felt so crappy and I couldn’t do it. I knew i would only let you down so I was giving you the chance to be happy with someone else rather than watching me ruin my life.” At some point during his speech he’d stopped looking at her again and she felt the tears behind her eyes.

He let a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“You know the worst part is, despite the fact that I’m a train wreck waiting to happen you came back, and I think I still love you.” He walked away before she could reply and so she just cried like she had ten years ago.

…

She woke up in an uncomfortable bed in the wrong part of Brooklyn surrounded by boxes she hadn’t yet unpacked. The night before came back to her in slices and her head pounded, a reminder of it all. She’d let him go a second time. He’d told her he loved her and she'd let him go again.

She pulled on the clothes nearest to her and found her keys. She had to finish this one way or another. She couldn’t hold anything back.

…

When she got to his door she used the key he’d given her instead of knocking and she found him drinking orange soda in his kitchen.

“Ames?” His blush still spread from his cheeks all the way down his throat just like she remembered and before she could stop herself she was kissing him. It was messy and desperate, making up for ten years of lost time. She pulled back from the tangle of limbs they’d quickly become.

“I still love you too. It was never going to be anyone else Jake.” Despite it all she felt something like happiness surrounding her. She’d finally found her way home.

He smiled back at her and leant down to kiss her again and maybe, she thought, it would all be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve been in a major slump and this took ages to finish and i keep starting new things without finishing the old ones which is a definite bad idea but oh well. Hopefully it sorting myself out but we’ll see i guess.


End file.
